DC Co-Publisher Jim Lee is a professional comic book artist (when he feels like it), so he understands something about comic books that all you readers complaining about the recent Harley Quinn Suicide Contest Controversy don't: that there is a greater context that should be taken into account when judging a single panel in a comic book. You see, the panel artists were asked to draw featuring Harley Quinn naked in a bathtub committing suicide to win a gig on the upcoming Harley Quinn series from DC wasn't about suicide or sexualizing female characters or sexualizing female characters committing suicide. Fans only overreacted because they didn't take this overall context into account. Thankfully, Lee is happy to explain it to you on Twitter:

Good afternoon all-hope the weekend is treating you well. Been drawing Superman Unchained but taking a much needed coffee brk.

Yes, especially when the script for that page about a sensitive and controversial subject is posted in a contest entry with absolutely no context given. You should have inferred that DC meant something else, people.

Which is why one might not chose that page, alone, for a public contest a week before World Suicide Prevention Day, particularly when that company has suffered from foot-in-mouth disease over similar stuff, like, a gazillion times in recent memory. But again... this is your failing as a reader, somehow.

ESPECIALLY when that sneak peek is just descriptions of the panels to be drawn without benefit of narration, captions or dialogue.

And it's certainly not DC's fault if the readers chose to see the worst one. Why should DC's marketing department think about those kinds of things before publishing a contest. There's hologram covers to be made!

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About the Author - Jude Terror

Jude Terror is the Webmaster Supreme of The Outhouse and a sarcastic ace reporter dedicated to delivering irreverent comics and entertainment news to The Outhouse's dozens of loyal readers. Driven by a quest for vengeance, Jude Terror taught himself to program and joined The Outhouse. He instantly began working toward his goal of forcing the internet comics community to take itself less seriously and failing miserably. Ironically, our webmaster, whose website skills know no end, has very little understanding of social networks or how they work. Regardless, you can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, but would probably have the most luck just emailing him.